Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Lettuce Style

Members from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia-Pacific wore outfits made out with real lettuce leaves and held signs that read “Save the Planet, Go Vegetarian,” as they greeted passersby in downtown Tokyo last month. PETA argues that switching to a vegetarian diet is the most effective way that anyone can do to fight climate change and reduce environmental destruction.

I’m a vegetarian, but I find PETA disgusting. Are they not intelligent enough to come up with a more sophisticated marketing strategy than exploiting their female interns for attention? It doesn’t seem that they have as much regard for the well-being of their employees as they do for the well-being of animals.

Let’s not let the–by now–unsurprising antics of PETA, obscure what is a serious concern that has been well corroborated and stated many, many times by many reputable people and organizations.

If you (impersonal) want to live free from oil and all its evils, you can’t live with the Amish because they use electricity. So, you’ll have to move someplace in the boonies, dig your own well, clear your land, fell some trees, and build and furnish a log cabin dwelling from local supplies all by hand and proceed to grow all your own local food and make all your own clothing and tools. Remember, nothing manufactured or transported that used oil.

You could also do nothing, that’s fine I suppose.

Or, trim down and conserve excess use of oil where you can in your life with the usual green alternatives that we keep hearing about, no need to repeat them here. As far as food goes, a plant-based diet, even swapping out a few meals per week, significantly reduces waste and pollution in the grand scheme of food life cycle production even without special trips and expenditures on local and organic.

It’s very easy to accomplish buying fruits, vegetables, grains, beans and nuts at any halfway decent grocery store and there an Internet full of free recipes and ideas. Learning to cook and eat more plant-based meals than otherwise especially with the assistance of delicious recipes you can find on the Bitten Blog can hardly be called sacrifice, however the environmental impact is significant.

That or go enjoy local, traditional, pastoral, isolationism utopia somewhere, but please, don’t just make a fetish of just food, be consistent through all things and do it right.

SSK – What would be wrong with everyone being a vegetarian? (I ask as a vegetarian who really hates PETA.) Whenever people point out that without eating animals fewer animals would be born, I have to response that maximizing the number of animals isn’t the point. To draw an analogy, Quiverfull aside, most of us don’t think that women should bear as many children as possible, but rather that once they exist, children are valuable and should be treated as such. I by no means am claiming that animals are as valuable as children, but rather that how many come into this world is not the issue. How we treat them when they are here is.

Are the anti-PETA people commenting so naive as to claim that tactics such as this are ineffective while proving otherwise in the fact that they are spending time to think about and comment here?

Sorry not everyone in a NYT reader, and this type of silly stuff (not sexist, just silly, get a sense of humor) is what makes more serious discussions about vegetarianism and food politics happen. It’s a ‘sticky’ idea as some would say.

Love ’em or hate ’em folks but when PETA acts, people talk and – in best case scenarios, when people talk they also think. And maybe, just maybe, a few people act differently as a result. And that’s how change happens.

But they spark conversation and, when it manages to be about the substance of the issue (as opposed to about the nature of the tactics) then their efforts do in fact make an impact.

Truth be told, they (as with most groups perceived as “extreme”) also make other fairly radical ideas (and I mean radical in the not-yet-mainstream, not-yet-hip kind of way) seem completely palatable to people in positions of power and authority.

I’m not a dues paying member of PETA, but I’m glad they’re out there making a stink from time to time.

Oh, and, just for the record, I’m a seafood eating “vegetarian” who’s been known to cook his own lobster.

Not sure what SSK means about everyone being vegetarian being no better than everyone consuming too much meat. I think if everyone were vegetarian, the amount of resources allocated to food production (i.e. water, petroleum, nitrates, etc.) could be much lower.

But I agree with the sentiment of ignoring PETA. I don’t think their sexist antics are an improvement over their past gory videos, and are even less effective in converting anyone but the already-saved.

Vegetarians fart more (and stink worse) thus producing more methane. Any reduction in methane from the elimination of livestock will be erased by the self righteous posers blasting us out of existence.

“If everyone goes vegetarian, then How many million acres on earth should be exploited for agriculture to fill the stomach of hungry Vegetarians ?” asked Julandy@10 (similar to @SSK):

The answer to this is: The area of land required to feed vegetarians would be much less than what is required to feed vegetarians and carnivores today. Meat production takes about 14 times more land, energy and water resources to produce the same amount of vegetarian food.

I am not a fan of PETA, but I am a vegan. I agree with them that not eating meat or fish is the best way we can fight global warming and it is also great for our bodies. It is challenging to eat in restaurants or at the homes of friends and family who are meat eaters, but it is the way to go for our health and our planet’s health. Even cheese requires that animals be maintained.

But we don’t need PETA to make the decision to be vegan. We can learn the lesson by reading The China Study Colin Campbell. See:http://www.thechinastudy.com/